REPORT.

TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

His late Majesty King William IV., having been pleased to issue a Commission under the Great Seal, bearing date the 20th of October, 1836, authorizing and directing the Commissioners therein named to inquire as to the best means of establishing an efficient Constabulary Force in the counties of England and Wales, for the prevention of offences, the detection and punishment of criminals, the due protection of property, and the more regular observance of the laws of the realm; and Your Majesty having been graciously pleased on your accession to revoke such Commission, and afterwards to renew the same, and to continue the same Commissioners in the exercise of the functions devolved upon them by His late Majesty :

We, Your Majesty's Commissioners, now humbly beg leave to report to Your Majesty, that we have inquired "as to the best means of establishment of an efficient Constabulary Force in the counties of England and Wales;" especially with a view to the following matters:

I. The prevention of offences.

II. The proceedings before trial, by which the detection and apprehension of criminals may be rendered more certain.

III. The public service which may be obtained from such Constabulary Force, otherwise than in the preservation of the peace.

IV. The manner in which such force should be appointed and paid.

Our first proceeding was to prepare and transmit to your Majesty's Justices of the Peace throughout England and Wales a set of queries intended to elicit such information as they might be able to give with relation to the state of crime and the means available for its prevention or repression, within their respective jurisdictions. (See Appendix, No. 1.) We addressed similar queries to the authorities charged with the preservation of the peace of the several chief towns of the counties to which our inquiries were directed. (Appendix, No. 2.) Being desirous of receiving information from those whose persons and property were objects of protection, and who are not themselves in anywise by office responsible for the conservation of the peace, we transmitted a set of queries to the representatives of the rate-payers at the Boards of Guardians of the New Parochial Unions. (Appendix, No. 3.) The unions to which these queries were transmitted comprehended in extent the greater proportion of our province of inquiry. The difficulty and delay in obtaining answers from single parishes, and the less responsible character of the persons to whom in most cases the queries must have been transmitted, appeared to us to counterbalance any advantages derivable from an apparent completeness of the returns; we therefore did not extend our inquiries beyond the new unions.

The returns of answers to these sets of queries served to indicate other sources of inquiry, and we have examined numerous bodies of witnesses who are well informed on particular courses of delinquency, or conversant with the state of insecurity of person or property in particular districts, or with the effects of measures of a special or experimental character, taken for the prevention or the suppression of crime. In respect to the general course of delinquency, for example, it appeared that a large proportion of the more pernicious crimes against property in the rural districts is committed by bands of depredators who migrate from the larger towns as from centres; the metropolis being the great centre from which they spread over the country; the chief provincial cities and towns being the subject of complaints as minor centres from whence depredators regularly steal out or make inroads into B

the adjacent rural districts. Upon these complaints we have completed inquiries on the spot into the state of crime, with reference to the adjacent districts and the means of its prevention, in the cities of Bristol and Bath, and the boroughs of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham.

We have also investigated, by the examination of witnesses on the spot, the causes of juvenile delinquency and the crimes connected with the general course of vagrancy and mendicity, and the means of suppressing them.

We have been led to pay special attention to the crimes committed against person or property, under circumstances where the inhabitants of the district in which the offences are committed, not being sufferers from the offences, have made no arrangements for their prevention. We have endeavoured to investigate the means of preventing the outrages committed against person and property on the occurrence of shipwrecks along the coast, and the additional securities required to protect property carried along the main roads, canals, and rivers, and lying in docks and harbours.

In order to be able to refer to actual experience, as far as possible, for every remedy which it might be our duty to propose, we have sought out instances of the trial of a paid Constabulary Force in rural districts by voluntary associations or otherwise, and we have carefully examined the operation of these experiments. In this view we have completed a close inquiry, on the spot, into the operation of the act of the 10th Geo. IV., cap. 97, under the authority of which the Magistrates of the County Palatine of Chester have, since the time of the passing of the Act, appointed and directed a paid Constabulary Force within the rural districts of that county.

On these topics, as well as on the general topics expressly prescribed to us for inquiry by our commission, we believe the body of evidence collected to be more extensive than has yet been elicited on any branch of penal administration. Besides the answers of the great body of the Magistracy of England and Wales, and of the public authorities of all the cities and towns in that part of the empire, it comprehends the examinations of numerous witnesses of every rank and class in society down to the confessions of criminals.

We shall first endeavour to give an outline of the information we have received, as to the extent of the primary evils in question, and of the requisite securities we shall next present the results of our information as to the general duties and state of the office of constable, as the main agency for the prevention of such evils we shall then advert to the various instances of successful experiments of prevention by such an agency which have come to our knowledge, and we shall submit our conclusions from such evidence as to the nature of the remedies available.

Absence of informa

mitted.

EXTENT OF DEPREDATION TO BE GUARDED AGAINST.

1. At the beginning of the Inquiry it became evident to us that the returns of tion of crimes com- the number of persons prosecuted or convicted, which, in the reasonings in Parliament are usually assumed as correct indications of the state of crime within any given district, cannot be relied upon for that purpose. In several districts where it was concluded, from the absence of any returns of prosecution, that there was an absence of crime, we found on examination that this fact resulted only from the impunity of depredators. In two instances where crime was remarkably frequent, where the only real security of the subject consisted in his own power of self-defence, and where, as we have good reason to believe, from the defective state of the Constabulary Force, there was no pursuit or apprehension, the gaols being empty, the judges were, according to custom, presented at the Assizes with white gloves as emblems of the purity of the districts. In other instances where, from the increased efficiency of the constables, or from increased facilities of prosecution, there has been an increased number of cases on the Calendar, it is common to hear this increase of prosecutions seriously treated as an increase of crime, and as the ground of alarm. The answers to the questions put by us to ascertain the state of the information possessed, as well as the state of the fact, show that there is in general no recorded information upon the subject on which any reliance for exactitude can be placed. So habitually is the Calendar of prosecutions re

garded as the index of the state of Crime, that a large proportion of the Magistrates' answers to our queries, as to the number of crimes committed within their districts, either give, in answer, the number of prosecutions, or refer us to the Clerk of the Peace as the proper source of information. Many of the Magistrates, however, at once stated their utter want of any better information than that supplied by common rumour. In most other cases the answers are to the following tenour; thus: the Magistrates of the Upper Division of Lewes Rape (Sussex) state:

"There being every reason to believe that a very small proportion of the offences committed (especially the minor ones) come in any shape within the knowledge of the Magistrates, it is not possible to give satisfactory information to these questions."

The Magistrates of the Division of Mutford and Lothingland (Suffolk) state:"There is no doubt but a very large proportion of offences are committed which are not brought officially before the Magistrates; and in very many cases there is reason to believe that felonies are compounded."

The Magistrates of the Teasdale Division (Derby) state:

Many felonies and misdemeanors are committed in this district which never come to the knowledge of the Magistrates except by accident.'

Other answers elicit the wide and strong connexions of the causes of this absence of information, with the whole train of penal administration; thus, General Marriott, one of the Magistrates of the Division of Pershore, and Chairman of the Pershore Union, Worcestershire, states in his answer:

"From the Magistrates' answers to questions third and fourth, it might be doubted whether any police was required or not in this division, there appearing only one conviction for felony (stealing a loaf), and one for misdemeanor (night poaching), in a district extending from north to south about sixteen miles, and from east to west nearly twenty miles, in the course of a whole year. I fear, however, this is very deceptive, and that there is a great deal of crime (not heinous, perhaps) which is not brought to light, from the want of police, and the unwillingness, under such circumstances, of the injured to prosecute. The River Avon winds through the whole extent of the district (eighteen miles), and the number of barges employed upon it gives great facility to plunder in the night time, and to escape detection, many of the bargemen being of the worst character. Since the Magistrates have been engaged in answering these queries, the skin and entrails of a fresh-killed sheep were taken out of the river in an eel-net, close to the town of Pershore, and although notice has been sent to all the neighbouring farmers, not one will own to having lost a sheep, for fear of being obliged to prosecute. They call it, "throwing away good money after bad." If reluctance to prosecute prevailed so much before, it has now been strengthened in this neighbourhood by the late Act of Parliament allowing counsel to prisoners. Mr. Tidmarsh, a large farmer, having at different times lost four fat sheep, succeeded at last in discovering the offenders, and the evidence was so strong against two persons charged, that they made a confession before the committing Magistrate, and implored the mercy of the prosecutor. The ingenuity of counsel, however, at the last quarter sessions prevailed, and the prisoners were acquitted. The farmers say, " After this, what use is there in prosecuting?"

The Magistrates of Shepton Mallet, in Somerset, state:

"Numerous complaints have been made by persons on account of the trouble and expense which they have sustained in pursuing and apprehending felons, for the ordering of the payment of which the Magistrates have no power, and we are convinced that this is a considerable inducement to persons to withhold information relative to the prosecution of offenders."

In other answers the motives to withhold information are thus stated. In the answer from the Borough of Newcastle-under-Line, it is stated :

"In thefts of a trifling character (as to the amount taken), a great disinclination to take the trouble of prosecuting exists. In the rural districts the constables are mostly farmers, who are often deterred from interfering with old offenders, or with beer-houses, or other resorts of the dissolute, by an apprehension of injury to themselves or property."

From the Borough of Gateshead it is stated that

"Parties making complaints for offences which are summarily punishable by the

Uttering forged bank notes.

victions.

Magistrates, have to bear the expense of apprehension of the offenders, the Magistrates having no power to award a remuneration to the officers or to the parties for their trouble, which has a tendency to prevent persons from lodging information of misdemeanors and petty offences."

From the Borough of Portsmouth, the motives to withhold information, or abstain from prosecution, are thus stated:--

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Expense, trouble, and loss of time, in cases of misdemeanors, are frequently more mischievous than some felonies; and where the expenses must be paid by the prosecutor after the police have been fortunate enough to arrest the delinquent, he is frequently liberated, to pursue his depredations, for want of a prosecution." From the Borough of Lymington it is stated:

"The individuals generally are indisposed to incur the expense, risk, and uncertainty of a conviction. In some cases a fear of personal violence or damage to property from combination amongst the thieves deters parties from investigating robberies."

From the city of Lincoln and other places, the answers concur in assigning to "the fear of vengeance," and injury from the depredators, a large proportion of the motives to withhold information. We shall revert to the several important and distinct topics indicated by the answers of the tenor of those quoted.

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§ 3. To judge of the extent to which the motives to withhold information rate as above stated, as well as for the other objects (§ 1), we considered it desirable to obtain more satisfactory information as to the probable amount of crime committed than was derivable from the parties injured. With this view we sought information through the confessions of convicts themselves. Nearly all of these confessions on which reliance could be placed were confirmatory of the impression of the extreme inadequacy of the existing knowledge on the subject. When requested to enumerate the crimes they had committed, it was only those convicts who had been engaged in burglaries or the larger depredations, who could enumerate the offences committed by them during any other than short periods. The common answers of those who had been engaged in petty depredations were, Impossible to state," "Could not remember a tenth of them," "Hundreds," Many hundreds," Sometimes more, sometimes less," "Too many to remember." One states, “If I was to recollect I could not tell them all between now and to-morrow." On a careful inquiry made amongst the habitual depredators confined in one of the wards of the Cold Bath Fields' prison by the Governor, Mr. Chesterton, it was estimated by the class of pickpockets, that "one day with another" they must steal about six pockethandkerchiefs or things of the same value, " to live," meaning, to obtain the means of livelihood, in such sort as to render a career of depredation more eligible to them than a livelihood by honest industry. It was satisfactorily established by independent evidence, that the average duration of the career of delinquents of this class, would be five or six years before permanent removal from the town by transportation or otherwise. Independently of the confessions of the delinquents, it was well known, that the money to sustain their habits of enjoyment could only be derived from some such an average produce of depredation. Such a career comprehending many hundred offences, would only be marked in the ordinary statistical returns of crime, by one or two items; the interruption by one or two prosecutions, previous to ultimate conviction or removal; yet the greater proportion of the prevalent reasoning as to the state of crime in this and other countries, is founded on such statistics.

§ 4. In the course of our examinations it occurred to us that light would be thrown on this subject by a comparison of the number of forged notes presented or returned to the Bank of England, with the number of prosecutions for uttering or forging such instruments.

It having been held that no person has any property in a forged note, or any Offences committed right to detain it, almost every forged Bank of England note finds its way to the compared with con- Bank. We believe that it is rarely that more than one forged note is uttered at one and the same time; consequently each item in the return of forged instruments presented may be taken as representing a distinct offence. The following is a return (made to us from the Solicitor of the Bank of England) of the number of forged notes presented, and of the number of convictions and executions for forgery, from the year 1805 to 1837, inclusive :

Note. On the first division of the above Table (1805-1823) the numbers Executed are those for Forgeries of every description; the Returns not distinguishing separately the Executions for Forging and uttering Forged Bank notes. In the latter division (1824-1837) the numbers Executed are of those who were Convicted of the offences in the second column, while they continued capital.

In the consideration of this very important piece of evidence, we would direct especial attention to the second column, as comprising the chief grounds on which the reasonings of members of the legislature have hitherto been founded, when the actual state of crime has been under discussion. It should be observed, with reference to the chances of escape displayed by the comparison of this second column of convictions with the first column, representing the number of offences actually committed, that the practice of uttering forged notes was considered by depredators to be a peculiarly dangerous career of crime: first, from the offender being necessarily seen and recognised in the commission of the fact, and from the fact being (amongst shopkeepers) peculiarly calculated to excite attention and alarm; and next, from pursuit and prosecution being instituted by an active public prosecutor, the Solicitor of the Bank, acting with the steadilydirected means of that powerful body. We are informed that the class of utterers were of the most desperate of criminals, and were instruments in the hands of the forgers. Yet on this class of cases the average chance of each criminal's escape from conviction during these several years was one to 167 at least. It will be seen that, during the years 1811, 1812, 1814,

11 appears from a Return laid before Parliament in May 1818 (Paper, No. 296), and also from one moved for in June 1821 (No. 673), that of 200,995 forged notes presented for payment during years 1812 to 1820 inclusive, 173,241 were notes for one Pound.

the

19,367 for two Pounds.

7,628 for five Pounds.

544 for ten Pounds.

2 for fifteen Pounds.

116 for twenty Pounds, and

35 for sums above twenty Pounds.